Friday, June 14, 2013

Experimentalism and Beyond True and False

Given the allusions to Experimentalism in #42, #44, and #210 of Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche's use of an experimental method in #36 suggests that the 'Philosophy of the Future' is already one of his Present.  But, since, as has been previously discussed, such a doctrine is irreducible to the Will to Power, one alternative formulation of it in his terms is 'the Self-Overcoming of the Will to the Truth'.  Now, in an experimental context, that 'Overcoming' has two meanings.  First, it indicates that Truth is always provisional, and is always subject to further testing.  Second, it connotes that what is traditionally conceived as a process of seeking, now includes one of creation as well, e. g. the fabrication of facts in a laboratory.  In other words, Experimentalism is 'beyond True and False', insofar as those two values gauge the correspondence between propositions and pre-given phenomena.  Now, while Nietzsche's appreciation of Falsity approaches the transcendence of that traditional duality, it remains constrained by it.  So, Experimentalism may indeed be a Philosophy of the Present for him, but in an embryonic stage.

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